Tim McIntyre also commented

Malcolm – political capital? No… that doesn’t work either – I’m not a politician, nor a member or strong supporter of any political party.

Just someone with an interest in sustainable energy and, as Webcraft says, the future.

Malcolm – that must have been Prof. Stephen Salter – I went to one or two of his very interesting lectures when I was a student in the next department along the corridor.

He’s now busy working on developing ‘geo-engineering’ solutions to climate change – spraying fine water droplets into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, among other things. Meanwhile wave power developments have come some way, but at a disappointing rate of progress as you say.

No-one ever said that developing renewable power technologies would be easy… but it’s worth the effort.

WS – the deep sighs from those of us with open minds are partly due to you answering every question with quotes from Heartland Institute “experts” and other carefully selected sources.

I merely asked you (twice) whether your mind was open enough to consider that human-induced global warming is at least a possibility, and whether you would accept in that case that we need to do something about it while we have a chance.

It does seem a bit extraordinary to have recommended such a low limit. Someone on the news yesterday was saying that coal mining regularly produced tremors of up to magnitude 3, but that little if any structural damage had ever been caused by them.

We get quite regular ‘quakes in North Argyll measuring a lot more than 0.5, and I’ve not heard of so much as a dislodged chimney pot.

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Recent comments by Tim McIntyre

Holyrood: the disappeared“The SNP’s Mike Mackenzie… was clearly not going to get back to Holyrood in an election where the constituency vote would be dominated by the SNP.”

The constituency vote made no difference – Highland elected the same number of SNP constituency MSPs as in 2011, so the loss of two Highland list SNPs MSPs is solely down to a reduction in their regional vote, from 47.5% to 37.9%.

The Tories’ astute move to wrap themselves in the union flag and thus, in effect, revert to their original identity as the Conservative & Unionist party has certainly paid them an impressive dividend electorally.

It will be interesting to see whether the reverse is true – i.e. whether being hard-wired to the Tory brand will do Unionism itself any favours over the course of this parliament.

Anyway, taking up your point about political ‘blinkers’ – maybe so, but I hastily add that I’m not defending him against the legitimate anger of his constituents, who are really the only folk that have an interest in his future now that he is a lowly back bench opposition MP in one of the smaller parties, and not a minister of state.

Those constituents – including no doubt a good number who voted for him having believed his claim that he knew nothing about a grubby smear campaign – have every right to feel pretty unhappy at what has transpired, and especially that it was kept carefully concealed until after they cast their votes. That is not a party political point in itself, and it is unfair and simplistic to characterise the legal campaign to force a by-election as such.

Given the high cost (and no legal aid) of raising an action, and the even more eye-watering potential for the awarding of costs in the event of failure, crowd funding seems to me a fair & transparent way to raise the money needed. Doubtless the campaigners are benefitting quite a bit from politically-motivated donations, especially given that Carmichael was one of the more, er, bruising personalities in the ‘No Thanks’ campaign. However, at the end of the day it is the court that will decide, even if the politics helps raise the cash.

As I understand it, the case will turn on whether the court finds that Alistair Carmichael’s admitted lie – that he knew nothing of the memo until contacted by journalists – amounts to ‘corrupt and illegal’ practice under the Representation of the People Act.

In other words, did Mr Carmichael try to cover up his own involvement in the smear in order to present himself to his constituents as an honourable and decent candidate for re-election, and thereby affect the outcome in Orkney & Shetland.

I suspect that anyone hoping for a detailed investigation into the writing of the memo itself may be disappointed…

Forget tactical voting for unity. Forget the coming of the one-party state. Your party matters more?Integrity – I’m sure you are right that the convention is informal, and obviously the parties can talk to each other as they wish – as the Lib Dems did with Labour last time. However, I assume that in practice, David Cameron would try every option to form a government and would not resign until these had been exhausted (as Gordon Brown did last time, despite coming a distant second). Only then would the SNP’s offer to Labour come into play.

John M – the SNP cannot ‘vote down’ a Tory government which has managed to assemble majority support – the key phrase in your quote being “if there is an anti-Tory majority”

Newsroom, I think you are right that stability could be a problem, especially as the Tory press in the south will do everything possible to de-stabilise a SNP-supported minority Labour government. If they can portray it as illegitimate that Labour gets to govern while the Tories got a majority in England, they will do so, loudly and insistently, and regardless of the damage to the Union.